


murdered/remembered

by starsupernova



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death, Gen, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6702280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsupernova/pseuds/starsupernova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah is dying.</p><p>It is a phrase that has more meaning than it seems to have.</p><p>Yes, he’s dead. Killed by Whelk seven years prior. A ghost, a near transparent form of what he had once been.</p><p>But he is still dying. The ley line and Cabeswater are weak. He sees dark black rotting and the death of a forest, a being, and then he knows he is dying as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	murdered/remembered

**Author's Note:**

> i got sad over noah after the end of trk so this happened.
> 
> obviously, spoilers below.

Noah is dying.

It is a phrase that has more meaning than it seems to have.

 _Yes_ , he’s dead. Killed by Whelk seven years prior. A ghost, a near transparent form of what he had once been.

But he is still dying. The ley line and Cabeswater are weak. He sees dark black rotting and the death of a forest, a being, and then he knows he is dying as well.

Death means forgotten, Noah knows.

It's lonely, empty, in 300 Fox Way, for a house that is known to be happy and lively and filled with magic.

He feels as if he is dying alone.

Calla is there sometimes, Blue others, though he still does not trust himself around her every time he looks at her eye.

No matter what they say about living on in the heart, death means forgotten in the end. No matter how you die.

Murdered.

He doesn't see much of Gansey, Adam, Ronan, Blue. His friends.

Noah remembers what they won't, after it's all over and he is dead. He remembers murder squash songs and being thrown out windows. Laughter, birthday schnapps, snow globes, kisses without consequence.

He remembers Monmouth evenings and Monmouth nights and how they believed in him, and each other. He remembers Ronan and Adam and Gansey, and most recently, Blue.

(Monmouth Manufacturing was a house of insomniacs but they won't remember at all.)

They are saving Henrietta while he fades into sunken cheekbones and pale skin, while he dies.

He dies, and dies again, as he relives the skateboard smashing into his skull, the agony, the torment, Whelk standing over him as he dies, again and again.

He’s resentful, sad; alone and broken and forgotten.

Sometimes it's Gansey’s death that he sees, an innocent ten year old boy in the chalky dirt and stretching trees and wasps swarming around him, stinging without mercy.

_You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, so you will live when you should not._

One of the rare times that Noah leaves 300 Fox Way is Raven Day. He doesn't remember his lively exuberant self from seven years prior but he remembers his sister’s smile as he told her about the idea. He remembers thinking of ravens and of battles and of life and death.

He doesn't want Gansey and Adam to see him while he is there. He lurks, tired and weary but with an urge to be there, to see his sisters, to see his friends sit up straighter when the Headmaster says his name.

Oh, how Noah wants to live.

He wants to be able to touch, feel, experience. He wants his friends. He wants to be remembered.

He is alone in 300 Fox Way. He hears about demons and trees and sacrifices but he is dying and it's hard for him to see and hear and breathe.

He's waiting for something, has been for seven years. Something that will end this repeating death and weakness. Something to stop the endless confusing circle of time and lead him in the right direction for once.

He’s waiting to _feel_ it. He feels more and his feelings are stronger when he is like this—a shell of himself. He feels it when Gansey dies for a second time. He feels grief ripping through the air on the ley line.

His friend is dead so he goes. He’s held on for so long to be useful. To save a life on the ley line one more time.

He sees Gansey’s face, oddly peaceful and bright for death.

(Blue had kissed Gansey, of course. Noah remembers the time when—)

_You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, so you will live when you should not._

Seventeen years old. Face bright and perfect, as if still living. The same age that Noah had died.

It wasn't possible to die twice, yet Gansey does it.

(He always seems to do the impossible.)

Ten years old. Wasps. Seventeen years old. A sacrifice and a kiss.

He wants Gansey to see him, thank him; he wants to be remembered.

Noah Czerny, the dead boy with cold hands and pale skin but a heart of gold and full of love.

Murdered, but remembered.

“Good-bye,” Noah says to Gansey, crouching over him, watching him die. “Don't throw it away.”

Noah never thought it possible to die twice.

Seventeen years old. Skateboard. Twenty four years old. A sacrifice and the memory of a kiss.

(Noah remembers the time when he kissed Blue. Because he couldn't die again.)

Yet now.

He quietly slides from time.

Murdered. Forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is stxrsupernova and my twitter is kiribakus.
> 
> come yell about my precious trc children with me.


End file.
